Bravo Boris

Now is the season for two of Macedonia's most important crops, red peppers and grapes. I love catching a whiff of roasting red peppers as I walk around town these days and I am keeping my fingers crossed that somebody gifts me some spicy ajvar. And then there are the grapes, which brought me last weekend to the town of Kavadarci for their Grozdober grape harvest festival. Kavadarci's city park was transformed into a carnivore/wine aficionado's dreamland with grilled meat and wine tasting stands as far as the eye could see. Unable to turn down something so delectable sounding, I tried my first ubiach, grilled pork or chicken stuffed with cheese and bacon. The verdict? Gooood.

The three Peace Corps volunteers that live in Kavadarci were nice enough to invite us visitors to celebrate Grozdober with some of their friends, in particular a guy named Boris. Who is Boris? He's a wine maker--which was evident from a glance at the label of the wine we were drinking that bears his name and grinning face.

We all sat around for several hours talking and enjoying the fruits of Boris' labor, never paying a denar.

What a guy, that Boris, what a guy.

Што сакате?

The MAK 15s, the newest group of wannabe volunteers aka trainees, arrived in Macedonia this week. This also means I have officially made it through my first year, with another 15 months to go. When I read the newbies' blogs about their orientation, it feels like I was just there, wondering what the 1,000 bill in my wallet could buy and struggling to remember good morning vs. good afternoon, but it also seems like a lifetime ago because so much happened here since.

I want to think that I arrived in Macedonia not believing that I would solve world hunger through my volunteer service but even so, it has been frustrating sometimes to realize how little I can do. The role of politics in multiple facets of life here is discouraging, and it is hard to see projects stall and people I care about struggle as a result. I myself wrestle with whether I try to initiate a new endeavor and attempt to build up local support or just wait for interested locals to come to me. So far I've taken more of the latter approach because I don't want to start something and then just have it fall apart after I go. However, that means that I see a lot of needs here that don't necessarily get addressed. I hope in my second year to figure out how to strike the right balance and get more accomplished.

Reflective as I am hitting this anniversary, I took a trip down memory lane and re-read my blog entries and I certainly couldn't have asked more a more eventful year. I met tons of new people, am perfecting cooking from scratch (good experiment lately with baba ganoush), and my Macedonian is good enough that I'm starting a verbal battle with my noisy neighbors about their propensity to yell outside my window. My expectation is that there will be plenty more craziness and drama to chronicle for another 15 months, but I want to make an appeal that if anyone has some facet of life in Macedonia that they want to hear about and I have not touched on, just leave me a note in the comments. As the blog title says, what do you want?

I *heart* hiking

If you get up at 3:15 AM, it should be for something really good. Fortunately I feel like this was the case when on Sunday I got up at that ungodly hour for my second hike with the Pelister Hiking Club. Kaylee and I were surprisingly not sore from the previous day's Ultimate Frisbee (or maybe it was just that 4 AM shot of whiskey from our fellow hikers that dulled the pain) as we piled into the van for the 3 hour drive to the mountain.

Dreading a repeat of the previous day's rainy weather, I was pleased to awake to a day that couldn't have been more perfect for hiking. Kaylee and I teamed up with Pelister hiking club member Igor and a friend of his from Skopje who I will call Tommy (because his name was something that sounded like Tommy but not quite and then I forgot it). Reaching the summit took us 4 hours and about 3 of those were uphill hours. I took 70 photos, in part because the scenery was gorgeous and partly because it was an excuse to rest. A selection of my shots is up on Picasa.

Kaylee and I wore matching T-shirts that say "I *heart* MK" and people got a big kick out of them on the trail. They were also a bit confusing to the Pelister club members because they had trouble telling us apart since we are the same height, similar coloring, both from Colorado, and our names in Macedonian are only one letter different (Кејти vs. Кејли). Okay, so admittedly we knew matching shirts would cause some confusion but it was fun confusion.

2.5 hours later, we were back at the trailhead eating snacks and drinking what seemed like the most delicious Coca Cola ever. Somehow all that exertion yet again barely phased the seasoned club hikers, who drank beer and sang songs the whole van ride home until we returned to Bitola at 10:30 PM. I myself slept most of the drive back, so I guess that I need to keep working on building up my "endurance."

Ultimightier Ultimate?

Saturday was the Bitola American Sports Club's first event, Ultimate Frisbee, and when I awoke to a light but steady rain, all I could think was, "Oh no!" The kids did such a great job promoting the event with flyers around town, a Facebook page, and a website, but all I could imagine was that nobody would come to play in this kind of weather. Dutifully fellow volunteer Kaylee (who got up at 5 AM to come help) and I went to the meeting spot and were pleased to see a few hardy souls waiting. All told, 10 kids showed up to play!

I feel like I can't emphasize enough what troopers these kids were--first of all, it is a half hour walk to the field where we played. Then they ran warmups in the rain, practiced throwing in the rain, listened to the rules in the rain and, you guessed it, played Ultimate Frisbee in yet more rain. We were wet, we were sliding around on the muddy field dodging cow pies, and we had a blast! I posted some pictures on Picasa, but it really doesn't do justice to how terrible the conditions were but clearly everyone was smiling and having fun nevertheless.

I am happy to report that, if we can figure out the shipping and customs, we will be getting a donation of baseball equipment from a group in the U.S. and another organization may be donating American football equipment. I am not sure what sport we'll tackle next month but we are having a planning meeting tonight to figure it out. I am certain, however, that we will play Ultimate Frisbee again sometime!